what!Can I see Aurora in China?

I believe that everyone has seen the photography of the Aurora -the long night of the polarity, the light color ribbon -shaped light is rolling and fluttering in the sky, and it is dark and light, making a colorful light.

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I do n’t know if everyone appreciates these wonderful aurora photography works, have you ever thought about it: Where did such a beautiful aurora come from? Today, let's talk about this problem carefully.

01

How is the Aurora formed?

The appearance of the aurora is inseparable from the sun activity. As a huge and hot gas ball, the sun performs a nuclear reaction of various chemical elements inside and surface, producing a strong charged particle flow. These charged particles flow out of the sun and shoot towards the surrounding space at a great speed. When this kind of thin high -altitude atmosphere is shot into the periphery of the earth, it will violently impact with the atoms in the atmosphere, so the glowing phenomenon is generated, and it is called aurora.

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Unexpectedly, the solar is so far away from us, and it can bring such a strange thing!

02

Extremely limited? what is this?

Most of the aurora appear near the north and south poles, and people living in low latitudes can only solve the photography works on the Internet.

But why is this?

We all know that the earth has a magnetic field, and the magnetic pole of the geomagnetic field is near the north and south poles (the magnetic pole North Pole is in the geographical Antarctic, and the magnetic pole Antarctic is in the geographical Arctic).

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As mentioned above, Aurora is mainly due to the stream of charged particles emitted from the sun. These charged particles flow from the sun will also be affected by the ground magnetic field and gather near the magnetic pole. Therefore, most of the aurora appears above the north and south poles. It is called Antarctic light in Antarctica, and the Arctic light occurs in the Arctic. my country is in the northern hemisphere, so it can only be seen in the Northeast and other places.

Generally speaking, Aurora is relatively rare in the latitude of my country. However, we just learned that the aurora phenomenon has a close relationship with the solar activity. Whenever the sun is strong, the aurora can be seen at a lower latitude.

For example, in the strong solar activity 1957, the Mohe and Huma City in the northeast border of my country appeared for decades of rare aurora: around 7 pm on March 2, 1957, a group of red and bright glow suddenly rose suddenly. Get up, it turned into a arc -shaped light belt for a moment, extending from the Heilongjiang to the south of Daxing'an Ridge. From September 29th to September 30th of the same year, there was also a rare magnificent aurora in the vast area above 40 degrees north latitude, which reflected the sky in the north. People are scrambling to admire the beautiful aurora, which is also an alternative "tour"!

03

Aurora, Aurora, why are you colorful?

In our impression, some aurora is like the tent, some are like arcs, some are strap, and some are ray; some are orange -red, some purple -red; some are light, some are dark. The sky is colorful and beautiful.

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But have you ever wondered why the Aurora is so colorful? There are so many forms?

The reason why Aurora is so colorful is actually related to the components of air. The air is composed of gases such as oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, 氖, and 氦. Under the influence of charged particle flow, the light emitted by various gas is different, so there are various shapes of different shapes of the aurora.

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In addition, the shape of Aurora is also diverse.

From the perspective of appearance: some such as light curtains, some such as light crowns, some such as light arcs, some such as light spots, some like light bands, some like light cylinders, some like beams.

From the perspective of structure: Some are uniformly sliced ​​structure, some are obviously blurred in the lower part, some are composed of lines, and some are composed of spots.

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From the outline: Some have no outlines on the bottom, and some have no outlines, only a thin and transparent piece in the night sky.

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From the perspective of exercise: some quiet, some move. The movement of the movement is also various: some are moving, some are blowing like the wind, some are sweeping, some are like the touched fire snake, and some are like the flames of dancing.

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From the perspective of the position: some are slightly exposed on the horizon (such as dawn light) on the horizon (such as dawn). Several styles can be presented at the same time in a aurora, sometimes the aurora is single -layer, and sometimes the double layer or even multi -layer.

It can be seen that there are many types and forms of the aurora. It is not easy to "gather" all.

Aurora, this word seems to have an infinite charm, from the power of the distant deep space, not far away to the earth, outlined colorful picture rolls in the pure night sky, attracting a number of travelers to overcome the cold and rushing to the polar, pursue the pursuit The beauty of the natural ghost.

Have you ever seen Aurora?

Produced ｜ Science Popularization China

Author ｜ Meteorological Ten Thousand Science Popular Science Team

Produced ｜ China Science Popularization Expo

Selection and delivery unit: Computer Information Network Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

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